Case History

Safely charting the course for emerging play development: Middle East

The thick and organic-rich marine carbonate shale sequence underlying a Middle East Basin is emerging as a highly prospective multi-stage unconventional target. To maximize reservoir contact and effectively develop the resource, the operator relies on multi-stage hydraulically fractured completion designs. Diversion techniques are used to effectively propagate fractures from each cluster by sequentially plugging off perforations from previously stimulated areas and direct the treatment to untreated zones. Verifying the success of the diversion operation, particularly with respect to individual perforation and stage efficiency, requires precise knowledge of near-wellbore proppant placement, which typically would be accomplished with radioactive tracers. However, due to local restrictions on radioactive tracers, the client required a non-hazardous alternative method to verify proppant placement and the success of the diversion operation. Read full case history to see how CARBONRT's evaluation strategy met all of the client’s objectives, with signals clearly observed in all stages without the HSE issues associated with radioactive tracers.